


How does your garden grow

by LiveOakWithMoss



Series: Silmarillion Prompts [42]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gardening, Humor, M/M, TFW you save up to visit your bf and then he's planting turnips, and you're like I rode from Himring the Ever-Cold for this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-29
Updated: 2016-08-29
Packaged: 2018-08-11 21:31:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7908316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveOakWithMoss/pseuds/LiveOakWithMoss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fingon is a hands-on sort of king, determined to see if he has any green thumbs amongst his collection. Maedhros, meanwhile, did not come all the way from Himring for gardening, for heaven's sake, Fingon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How does your garden grow

**Author's Note:**

> 0\. For the prompt: "Imagine Fingon, Maedhros and a failed attempt at a vegetable garden..."  
> 1\. I wrote this on Tumblr longer ago than I care to admit. Cross-posting at a glacial pace, that's me.

Lord Maedhros Fëanorion, commander of Himring Hill, arrived punctually at Barad Eithel to give his respects to the High King Fingon, his cousin and famed long-time friend.

He waited in the anteroom for forty-five minutes before he decided that patience was overrated, said a word that made the guard watching him jump into a tapestry, and stalked off.

He found Fingon’s personal guard sitting on the wall of the back courtyard and frowned down at her, unimpressed.

“Should you not be guarding the king’s person?” he demanded. “And where _is_ his person, anyway? It has kept me waiting nearly an hour, so much for cousinly consideration.”

The guard pointed, her expression carefully neutral. “The king is grubbing today, milord,” she said, with the tone of someone who’d already been scolded once that day. “He doesn’t like being ‘hovered over’ while he does.”

“Grubbing?” began Maedhros, and then looked where she was pointing.

The High King of the Noldor was on his hands and knees in a patch of dug-up earth, his usually neat braids piled into a messy topknot, a spade in one hand.

Maedhros’ mouth dropped open.

He made his way slowly down to where his cousin was ‘grubbing’, and stood over him until Fingon noticed the long shadow and looked up.

“Maitimo!” Fingon’s smudged face broke into a delighted smile. “You’re here!”

“Of course I’m here,” said Maedhros, somewhat peeved. “On the agreed day, at the agreed time. Did you forget?” He himself had kept the date carefully marked, even counted down to it, and driven Maglor mad with his endless calculations about riding time estimations.

“Of course not,” said Fingon cheerfully. “I knew you were coming today. I thought you might like to join me.”

Maedhros eyed him. “Join you in…the mud.”

“I am gardening,” corrected Fingon. “Trying to set a good example for the people, you know, practice what I preach about good husbandry and all that.” He shot a look at Maedhros, and there might have been a flicker of a wink before he continued. “It’s been a while since I watched my mother work on her rose beds, but I think it’s coming back to me.”

“You’re planting roses?” said Maedhros slowly.

“No, potatoes.” Fingon wiped his arm over his forehead. “Roses wouldn’t be very practical, you see.”

“Somehow I think that roses and potatoes require rather different techniques.”

“Well.” Fingon hesitated. “That may be so. But I’m a quick student, and I learn by doing! I’ll figure it out.”

“Perhaps,” suggested Maedhros, reaching out a hand, “you could clean yourself and change into regular clothes – or not change,” he added, quietly enough so that the guard wouldn’t hear, “and you and I could…catch up.”

“Oh, but I was so hoping you’d help me out,” said Fingon earnestly, his eyes widening. “It would be fun, wouldn’t it?”

Not as fun as other things, Maedhros wanted to say. Things that involved the privacy of Fingon’s chambers, and the ability to relax and speak freely - and to act freely as well. “Don’t you think it is undignified for a king to be ‘grubbing about’ like this?” he said instead, gesturing with his right hand, the gold of the prosthetic catching the light. His voice had come out more sternly than he’d intended – he sounded almost like his father – and he winced.

Fingon sat back on his heels. “No,” he said. “I don’t. Why, do you think there is something wrong with a king who actually gets his hands dirty?” There was a challenge in his voice, and Maedhros felt nettled. This was unfair, he had not wanted to argue, only to see Fingon and spend some time the two of them alone…

“This seems like another of your whims,” he said, more loudly than was wise, “that you do in service of noble intention but that ends up causing everyone a great deal more trouble than it is worth.”

Fingon’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, yes,” he said. “I can see how that instinct has gotten you in trouble before. My noble intentions have really put a hitch in your life plans, haven’t they?”

Maedhros clenched his left hand, his gold right hand thudding into his thigh. “A little bit, yes,” he said before he could stop himself.

He half expected Fingon to rise to his feet and hit him - would have liked it, even - but instead Fingon just bent down over the dirt again, a loose curl of hair falling into his eyes. “In that case,” he said, quite mildly, “my noble intentions request that you remove your noble judgmental arse from my garden, so I can get some work done.”

Maedhros felt a sudden burst of shame, but his pride wouldn’t let him apologize. Annoyed and feeling distinctly robbed, he left Fingon to his potatoes. He left Barad Eithel altogether, in fact, surprising the hapless door guard once more, and rode home to Himring, entirely out of sorts and in no mood to answer Maglor’s startled questions.

 

* * *

 

It was Fingon’s ‘grubbing about’ day again.

It was also the day they usually set for Maedhros to visit, but Fingon determinedly told himself not to get his hopes up. There had been a frosty silence between him and Maedhros for the past couple months, neither of them wanting to be the one to crack and write first, and so an unusual letter embargo stretched between Barad Eithel and Himring. An occupational hazard of having the same damned stubborn blood, Fingon told himself, and pulled on his gardening gloves with a purpose. The potatoes had not gone well, but he was feeling hopeful about his radish experiment, and it was with absolutely no thought to tall, armored figures or long, radish-colored hair, that Finrod made his way to the patch of ground he’d been trying to cultivate.

But when he got there, he saw he’d been preempted.

Several pieces of armor had been laid neatly on the steps, and their former wearer was kneeling in the garden patch, digging busily. A red braid was dragging in the dirt, but its owner didn’t seem to notice.

“Maitimo?”

Maedhros started up, inadvertently flinging a little bit of dirt that landed on Fingon’s boots. Fingon stared.

“Oh! Hello.” Maedhros tried to shove the hair out of his eyes and rebounded slightly. “Ouch! I hope it’s not a problem that I started without you? I was eager to get here in time to get the best light for the seedlings, and…” He trailed off, noticing the direction of Fingon’s stare. “Oh, this?” He waved his right wrist. “I, ah, asked Curufin if he would make me a new attachment for it. Thought it would be helpful.” The golden trowel glinted in the sunlight as he waved it again. “And I had Celebrimbor dig up some information for me on radishes…”

“It was potatoes, last time,” said Fingon, hoarsely.

“Yes, but I sent a message to your guard asking if you’d switched crops, and she said you had. Celebrimbor sent me with a lot of suggestions, and also some thoughts on crop mixing, you know, things you could plant simultaneously so as to increase efficiency and production.” Maedhros shrugged his lopsided shoulders. “If you’re interested.” He caught Fingon’s eye and smiled crookedly. “I’ve always liked root vegetables,” he said quietly, “almost as much as I like a king with noble intentions.” His expression held all the regret and silent apology that Fingon knew he would never have been able to write, and in the next moment he was dropping to his knees in the dirt at Maedhros’ side and catching his face between his gloved hands.

Noble intentions aside, he was, after all, a king who liked to get his hands dirty.


End file.
